Best SUV To Buy 2025

• The Kia EV9 packs battery power into a family-friendly form factor
• Our Best Car To Buy 2024 returns in 2025, mostly unchanged
• Our pick, the 2025 EV9 Wind, costs about $66,000

Every year, The Car Connection’s team of editors fans out to drive all the important new cars of the model year. We pick one new vehicle that pegs the needle with value, style, safety, performance, and technology, and call it our Best Car To Buy.

But we also revisit those vehicles that made deep, lasting impressions. And among those, from all of the nearly 300 new vehicles on the road, the Kia EV9 remains our favorite SUV.

The EV9 beat all challengers last year to take home the title of Best Car To Buy 2024. Precious little has changed for the new model year. It still earns a TCC Rating of 8.4 out of 10, and we’d still equip the 2025 Kia EV9 in our favorite $65,395 Wind configuration, with a dual-motor drivetrain.

How does any vehicle repeat, with so many great new cars, trucks, and SUVs emerging each year? The EV9 starts with its angular but aero-smart shape—a clever half-step ahead of all comers while still clearly a member of the Kia brand. With some of its aero flow, it reads like a Rivian or a Range Rover, but techy details telegraph its design-forward origins in South Korea—especially its digital-display-rich interior.

The EV9 wins with the revolution under the floor. A big seven-passenger SUV with battery power on deck, the all-electric EV9 comes with a choice of either a smaller 76.1-kwh battery pack rated at 230 miles of driving range, or a larger 99.8-kwh pack good for up to 304 miles of range. It’s no Rivian R1S—there’s no hint of any future battery option with 400-plus miles of range—but it still suits most family chores well. Single-motor models offer rear-wheel drive, while dual-motor all-wheel drive graces most of the pricey, higher-end trims. In all models, the EV9 handles better than most gas-powered family crossover SUVs, with its low center of gravity and responsive steering. It’s big and heavy, but it manages it all well.

Interior space merits a nod above those gas-driven utes, too. The battery pack forms a low, flat floor that shoulders a broad cabin with plenty of space for five large passengers and one or two smaller ones, depending on the configuration (six or seven seats can be fitted). Behind the third row the EV9 has 20.2 cubic feet of storage space, which expands to 81.9 cubic feet when the second and third rows are folded forward. 

The EV9 has plenty of safety gear, from automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection to adaptive cruise control. And it’s tech-rich, with a 12.3-inch digital gauge display and a 12.3-inch touchscreen with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Wireless smartphone charging comes with most versions. Kia has baked in bidirectional charging, so the SUV can be used as emergency power backup, too.

The interior’s not as rich as its best Telluride cabins, and at about $66,000, our favorite EV9—a dual-motor Wind—isn’t a spectacular value. That is, until it’s shopped against the Rivian and Range Rover. It’s a luxury vehicle, a forward-thinking electric car—it’s progress in a three-row package, and that helps it retain our title as the Best SUV To Buy 2025.